


For Something Less Unlovely

by callmelyss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armpit Kink, Blow Jobs, Darth Tantrum and his Evil Space Ginger, Intercrural Sex, Licking, M/M, Olfactophilia, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-TLJ, Pubic Hair, The Author Regrets Everything, Villains, osmolagnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:58:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15958364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmelyss/pseuds/callmelyss
Summary: Hux almost overlooks it, crouched, opening the drawers of the bedside table one by one. Thinks it’s just a piece of cloth covering something more precious or damning. But it's familiar, the fabric in his hand, the sheen of it, the weight, and he pauses, straightening.It’s the uniform of a First Order officer.—Hux goes snooping in Ren's rooms; he finds more than he bargained for.





	For Something Less Unlovely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [valda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/gifts), [IrisParry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisParry/gifts).



> Title from William Carlos Williams' poem "Smell."

Hux goes himself. 

It’s unusual, even he would admit; he has been more than content, in the past, to let Opan complete this sort of task. _Snooping_. Not that his confidence in the good captain has at all diminished in recent weeks. He may be, in fact, the last person Hux trusts aboard the _Finalizer_ with Phasma gone, lost in the destruction of the _Supremacy_ by underhanded Resistance scum, her body as of yet unrecovered.

No, he doubts neither Opan’s loyalty nor his competence, but he prefers to handle this matter personally. He has his reasons, good ones, he thinks as he pries open the keypad on Ren’s door. The Supreme Leader may not be so arrogant as to forgo the security on his personal chambers, but Hux has his ways around. It’s a simple matter, less than a minute in execution, to reconnect the internal wiring and disable the lock. After all, he designed these systems. 

He slips into the front room as though he belongs there, untroubled by the possibility that someone might see. Of course, the General of the First Order has every reason to call on his Supreme Leader, even in his quarters, even during the relative quiet of the evening shift, even though it is the General’s rest cycle. Never mind, of course, that Ren isn’t onboard the _Finalizer_ at the moment; he’s seeing to the recovery of Snoke’s effects from the hulk of their ruined flagship. By the time he returns, Hux will be gone, and the security footage will have conveniently vanished. Glitches happen.

To begin: a cursory examination of the sitting room. It’s not so different from Hux’s own, the same high quality of furniture, the same sideboard of Corellian brandy (and a more few exotic vintages he doesn’t recognize), the same shelves of books, and the same concealed holoscreen. He does his diligence, but he won’t find what he’s looking for here, he knows, or in the sparse meditation room, empty except for a pile of exercise mats and the blackened, gaping-eyed skull of Darth Vader (he grimaces). 

Ren will, in the way of any child hiding his treasures, keep everything of importance in the bedroom.

Hux cannot say _precisely_ what he’s looking for as he pulls open Ren’s closet, rifles through the surprisingly neat row of black tunics hanging there, shakes his heavy cloaks, and feels along the walls and floor of the space for hidden catches and false bottoms. He’ll know what it is when he sees it, whatever Ren’s trying to hide, and certainly he’s hiding something—everyone is. Evidence, perhaps, of what really happened to Snoke. Of Ren’s feigned allegiances to the Order. His family history. _Something_.

He went himself because he didn’t know what, exactly, he would find, what he needed to find.

True, Opan could have sniffed out Ren’s secrets just as well, better even, but he’ll see to this. The bruises on his side are fading, the physical pain easing, but the memory persists, inflamed, mottled, smarting. He _deserves_ this, to stand before his people with the new Supreme Leader’s true self in hand and show them, show them exactly the sort of creature Ren is. 

And if he’s honest, well, _yes_ , of course, he’s curious, too. Five years of obscure mysticism and nebulous answers to his questions. Five years of having to share his command with this half-trained _sorcerer_ and his inexplicable methods. Five years of scraping, struggling, reaching, only to have it dashed away during one of Ren’s karking tantrums. He doesn’t doubt that’s what happened. The destruction in Snoke’s throne room has Ren’s name written all over it, carved into the durasteel ten feet high with that ridiculous laser weapon of his. Never mind whatever insultingly transparent excuse he offered about the scavenger girl.

Hux almost overlooks it, crouched, opening the drawers of the bedside table one by one. Thinks it’s just a piece of cloth covering something more precious or damning. But it's familiar, the fabric in his hand, the sheen of it, the weight, and he pauses, straightening. 

It’s the uniform of a First Order officer. 

Not new. Not in good shape at all, rumpled from being improperly stored, stuffed in this drawer like it’s the evidence of a crime, with finer wrinkles creased into it from being worn or handled. It’s quite stained in places, too: dark, stiff patches spotting the tunic, scorch marks browning the black here and there, and a streak of what can only be dried blood smeared across the stripes. Stripes, he counts— _his_ stripes. His uniform, Hux realizes, a punch of shock going through him.

What the _fuck_ could Ren possibly want with _his_ uniform? Where did he even get it?

The second question answers itself before the first: the blood and burnt cloth. Starkiller heaving under their feet as Hux dragged a half-conscious Ren to the shuttle, stumbling with his arm over his shoulders, all but carrying him as Hux’s superweapon spasmed through her death throes around them. He hadn’t thought they would make it, had sweated and staggered and cursed Ren, sputtering, skidding through the slush and mud. Had fallen more than once, Ren’s weight taking him down in a heap. He had nearly left him there, moaning, feverish. _Should have done._

But he had made it to the command shuttle with his utterly useless charge, had piloted them off a planet trying and failing to contain the wrath of a sun, had gotten them clear of the blast radius just in time, not that anyone, not Ren or Snoke, ever thanked him for that. Once he had set their course for the _Finalizer_ , he’d given Ren a sedative and stabilized him before the medical droids could see to his injuries: the wounds on his face, shoulder, and side. The latter had been the source of all the blood; the former had still been hot, cauterized, when Hux examined them.

He’d been dizzy with exhaustion and fury by then. Has a vague memory, maybe, of peeling off his soiled tunic, soaked through with snow and perspiration, and dumping it on the shuttle floor in disgust. Of shrugging his greatcoat—muddy but salvageable—on over his undershirt. He’d gone straight to the bridge after that, used the sonic in his office, slicked his hair flat, and put on the spare uniform he keeps there, for the not-infrequent times he falls asleep at his desk. Didn’t spare a second thought for the ruined, discarded uniform. 

Until now.

What Ren could want with it, he can’t fathom. He smooths it between his hands, trying to discern what he might have done to it. Is it for some arcane Force ritual? A way to undermine him, hurt him perhaps? But why bother when he can simply choke him where he stands? Or fling him into the nearest control panel? He’s shown himself to be willing and able to do both. Hux twists the shirt in his fists. Wants, suddenly, to tear it to pieces.

“What the fuck are you doing?” a voice— _Ren’s_ voice—demands from the entrance. 

He startles, turning, to find him looming in the doorway, almost blocking out the light from the other room entirely. Ren: a full eclipse. 

 _You weren’t supposed to be back for another two hours,_ Hux almost accuses him, annoyed, instead of giving an excuse. Not that there’s any reason he could offer that will spare him now. But Ren’s caught sight of what he’s holding—his eyes widening, _panicked?_ —and he stalks toward him before he can say anything. “That’s mine,” he growls.

There’s no reason that should irritate him more than, say, the Supreme Leader’s continuing existence, but there’s something about the way he says it, like _Hux_ is the thief here, that needles him. “It certainly is not,” he huffs.

“It is,” Ren insists. He’s still several paces away, but he’s between Hux and the door now, unless he can scramble over the bed. “It's not yours anymore. You threw it away.”

“I dropped it on the floor,” he hisses. Wanting to jab a finger in Ren’s face. Unwilling to move near enough to do so. “Because it was _garbage._ Because you bled all over it with your _nonsense_ after you ruined _everything_. Like you always do.”

“Give it back,” he commands, holding out one hand. 

And that alone— _an order—_ makes him want to hold it out of his reach and also to dump it down the nearest trash chute. But Ren must sense his intention, or else is impatient with waiting, because he closes the distance between them with two lurching steps. Snatches the uniform out of his hands and tucks it into his cloak. 

 _Freezes_.

He’s near enough that Hux can see the way his nostrils flare, once, then twice, and how his eyelids droop, just slightly. How he sways forward, drawn by—

That’s happened once before, on the shuttle back from Crait; Ren had leaned over him and _sniffed_ loudly. He had been too preoccupied to think much of it then, already immersed in his plans to usurp the Supreme Leader, his hatred and the ache in his side equally distracting. And thinking on it later, he concluded it was simply another of Ren’s bizarre intimidation tactics, juvenile as they are.

But. 

Ren doesn’t move, seeing—or sensing—the understanding wash through him. He stares as Hux reaches up to unfasten his collar and the first two buttons of his shirt, hooks his fingers in it and holds it open, waiting. Questioning. 

He doesn’t know what he expects, has no frame of reference for this moment, for the way Ren crowds against him, all hulking shoulders and awkward gait, and presses his face against the exposed crook of his shoulder and neck. _Inhales_. Deeply. As though it’s the first real breath he’s taken all day.

What, Hux wants to ask, although he's invited this. What are you doing. What’s happening.

But the _what_ he knows—Ren is _smelling_ him, taking great _whuffing_ sniffs of him, like he’s trying to discern something necessary, _crucial_ , from the mild odor of Hux’s sweat, the residue of his soap, the starched scent of his uniform. The steady puffs of air tickle his neck, the fine hairs at his nape, and he shivers, something quivering in his belly under Ren’s attentions, although it shouldn’t affect him this way, just someone else _breathing._ Well, breathing  _on_ him to be sure, but it’s just warm air on his skin in the end, even if it is pushed from Ren’s lungs as he moves from the juncture of Hux’s shoulder up to the hinge of his jaw.

Odd that he isn’t touching him otherwise, hands still at his sides, but he feels inescapable all the same, huge, the weight and heat and smell—wool, sweat, and something mineral—of him so close and almost all-encompassing. Hux clenches both fists, if only to hide the way his hands have started shaking.

Ren nudges under his ear with his nose, snuffling at his hair like an animal; he doesn’t know what to do but stand still. Except then Ren licks the side of his neck, a wet stripe along his jugular, and Hux isn’t sure if his knees will hold him as another shudder runs down his spine. It’s depraved, whatever this is; it’s disgusting. His cock throbs, heavy, thickening between his legs. He whimpers, despite himself.

Very much despite himself.

“I never thought you would smell like anything,” Ren is murmuring into his skin. Explaining, maybe. The low rumble of his voice sends more tremors through him—his shoulders, his calves, his clenched hands. “You’re so _clean_. I thought you would smell like plasteel. Sterile, you know. Artificial. But you don’t.” Like he’s offering some sort of revelation about Hux’s body. _To Hux_.

 _That’s ridiculous_ , he wants to object. Offended, for some reason, by this supposition. _I’m still a person_. Instead, he asks, “No? What do I smell like then?”

Ren’s breath is hot in his ear. “Like fear,” he says. Voice feather-soft as he nuzzles him again. “And rage. And want. _Fuck_ , you want so many things, don’t you, Hux. Greedy and so desperate. You _reek_ of it, I don’t know how I didn’t. Before. It’s—hells, it’s—” 

Whatever restraint, if it can rightly be called that, he had disappears then, and Ren’s hands are on him, all over him, leaving only heat and prickling skin behind. Mapping him: his arse and hips and thighs and cupping his stiff cock through the front of his jodhpurs and then up over his ribs and across his chest and shoulders and, somehow most intimately, his face, one gloved thumb dipping between Hux’s lips. And he doesn’t think about it—just bites him for the presumption, tasting leather, salt, and oil.

Ren grabs his chin in response, bruising hard, stilling him, studying his face. Hux only raises his eyebrows at him _. Well. What now?_

“I want,” Ren tells him. Very bluntly. “To know what you smell like when you come.”

He couldn’t, even if he wanted to, mask his reaction at this distance. And it should be, _should be_ revulsion in the way he shudders and turns his face to the side, breaking Ren’s grip. But there’s also the way his cock twitches. The low moan that rattles his throat. How he sags against him. The _yes_ that hisses free between his teeth.

Ren’s hands are on him again, closing around his waist before he lifts him and lays him out, almost gently, on the bed, without effort. Hux had had to practically drag the impossible bulk of him to the command shuttle on Starkiller, but of course, Ren moves his whole frame like he weighs nothing. 

He sheds his cloak and gloves before he crawls over him, one thick leg on either side of his, his hair hanging, messy, slightly damp, around his face. And Hux is blanketed again with Ren’s smell, surrounded by it; it’s no doubt steeped into the sheets, too. He could turn his head and inhale, see what he could discern from it, although it mostly smells _human_ ,and Ren’s mortality, his fallibility, have never been in question. They are all too apparent.

And perhaps that’s all Ren is after as he opens Hux’s uniform, parting the hidden fastenings and exposing the severe, narrow lines of him, the slight pliancy of his belly, the hollow of his clavicle. He pauses to press his face into his dark undershirt, soiled with the day’s exertions, the hours pacing the bridge, those spent in his office, too. Not strenuous work, most would say, but most didn’t have to keep a star destroyer and the surviving fleet running and with everything else in shambles besides. _Exhaustion_ , that’s what he must really smell like, he decides. Bone-deep weariness.

Ren lets him up enough for him to shimmy out of his tunic. He wants to fuss when he carelessly tosses it on the floor, but then Ren’s grabbing at his wrists, pressing them above his head with one hand while he lowers his head to one of Hux’s armpits and _sniffs._

“Oh, _honestly_ ,“ he protests. Outraged. “You _can’t_ be—“

He breaks off with a whine as Ren slowly licks the tufts of dark red hair. Swallows an unhinged laugh at the sensation of a tongue there, of all places, at the cooling tickle of saliva. Almost jumps off the bed—or would try—when Ren drags his teeth across the sensitive skin. “Ah! Careful.” Stranger still, the kisses Ren presses against his armpit. _Appreciative_. Nearly tender. It shouldn't arouse him further. Doesn't.

Hux lolls back against the mattress as he turns his attention to his chest, mouthing at it through his thin shirt, bringing his nipples to hard peaks, leaving damp circles behind. Ren relinquishes his hold on his wrists to slide both hands beneath the fabric, bunching it up under his arms while he kisses and laves and nips his way down his abdomen, pausing to swirl his tongue in Hux’s bellybutton and again to lick the trail of red dipping below his waistband.

“I, uh, _Ren_ ,” Hux says. Gasps, really, and that’s embarrassing, but it’s been some time since someone last touched him this way. He sits up on his elbows, watching him tongue the jutting line of his hip, and thinks maybe no one’s ever touched him _like_ _this_.

“Hm?” Ren asks. He slides long fingers over Hux’s ribs, lifting his undershirt up and off. Crumples it in his hands and brings it his nose, inhaling. 

 _Another souvenir?_ Seeing, really seeing now, how it must have been, Ren drawing out his old shirt while he lay in bed, raising it to his face, maybe letting one hand wander downward, maybe—

And Ren is leaning over him again now, his lips on the shell of his ear. “Yes,” he confirms. “Yes, it was just like that.” He lets some of his weight sink onto Hux then, pressing him into the mattress, the hard line of his cock digging into him. _Like this_ , he’s saying.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he manages. Just before Ren kisses him.

He’s been kissed thoroughly before, deeply, like this, but he doesn’t think anyone’s tried to taste him so completely, has licked at his teeth like this, sucked on his tongue like this, has chewed at his lips like this. It’s not entirely comfortable, nor is the heavy press of Ren against him, but the last thing he thought sex with Kylo Ren would be is _comfortable_. Just not, precisely, for these reasons.

More familiar is the sensation of rough hands opening his pants. Stroking his cock through his shorts. He arches against Ren, groaning into his mouth. Yes, _entirely_ too long since someone’s touched him this way. “Loneliness,” Ren observes. Breathing it in from Hux’s exhalations. “That’s what it is.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hux says and bites his lower lip—hard.

He helps Ren free him from his boots and socks and jodhpurs, kicking them away in his impatience to get those hands, that _mouth_ , finally good for something, on him. _Feels_ the flush bloom across his chest at the way Ren’s nosing at his crotch, the tent he’s making of his shorts, smelling him _there_ , too, and Hux presses the crook of his elbow to his eyes, mortified. “I’ll _give_ them to you, for fuck’s sake, just— _fuck_.“ He throws his head back as Ren licks him through the fabric. 

“Mm. Patience,” Ren reminds him. Not stopping.

“Unless you want me to— _ah_ —come in my underwear, I suggest— _kriff_ —getting on with it.”

His eyes are bright when he lifts his head, a near-smile tilting his mouth. “What makes you think I don’t want that?” he taunts. “The mess of it. Maybe I’ll send you back to your quarters that way, General, smelling like your own spend. Everyone would know, your soldiers, your officers. Imagine sharing the lift with one of them. Like that.”

“ _Disgusting,_ ” Hux moans.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he says. But he relents, tugging his shorts down his legs before pocketing them, deliberately meeting Hux’s eyes as he does so. He takes the opportunity to remove his own tunic, too, and Hux has a hazy memory of that impressive chest shaking under his hands when he tried to the stem the bleeding in his side. 

“You were almost  _dead_ ,” he hisses as Ren settles between his legs again. “You still needed to steal my _shirt_?”

He’s quiet, looking up at him, serious. “I wanted something to hold,” he admits.

He doesn’t give Hux a chance to respond, however, resumes his explorations with renewed enthusiasm now that he’s completely exposed, bare, under him. Laves the crease of his thigh, sniffs at the tidy nest of curls at the base of his cock, at his cock. Presses a wet kiss to the big vein running down it, before he moves lower, nosing at his balls, lapping them, then takes both into his mouth and _suckles_.

Hux yelps, hips twitching upward before Ren presses him back down, continuing this treatment, enthusiastic, loud, until he’s satisfied, pulling off them, his mouth sloppy, red, as he descends— _finally_ _—_ on Hux’s cock. He bobs a few times, slurping at the head before taking him entirely in his mouth with one smooth motion, nose buried again in his pubic hair. His eyes flutter blissfully shut, peaceful. Like he’s never seen Ren.

“ _Fuck._ ” Hux has to look away, feeling himself slip. “Ren, I—I’m—“ _Not going to last long_.  

He hollows his cheeks, swallowing against the head twice before moving off with a wet _pop_. He replaces his mouth with his hand, working the length of him, relentless, as he leans back over Hux, breathing in the smell of him where he’s sweating, damp under his arms, at base of his throat, his hairline, and, strangely, absurdly, it’s this attention as much as the steady, sure touch that sends him tilting over the edge, a pathetic cry wrung from him as he comes too quickly in Ren’s hand.  

He lies there, panting, as Ren sniffs at him, tasting him. Startles, his daze receding, when he feels Ren parting his legs, spreading his knees. And of course, Ren will want to get off, but he wasn’t planning this, that is, he’s not _ready_  and—

“Easy,” Ren’s saying. He’s dragging his palm up and down Hux’s inner thighs, smearing him, inexplicably, with his own come. “Here.”

He shivers. “What—?”

He’s pushing his legs together and back, pressing Hux’s shins towards his chest. Pausing to taste the wetness behind his knees. “Hold them for me?” he asks.

He does, perplexed, not convinced Ren doesn’t mean to fuck him anyway, and raw, as he steps out of his pants, his boots. Waits, pulse rabbiting, until he feels the thick length of him pressing, not against his arse, but between his thighs, sliding through. Feels, as much as hears, Ren groan, under the sound of their bare skin slapping together. 

“Good, that’s good,” he says, mostly to himself, and he starts pumping between Hux’s closed legs, seeking the friction there, and with each thrust he’s brushing the underside of Hux’s spent cock, it and his balls tender yet. He whimpers and cants his hips, seeking that contact even as it verges on overstimulation. Feels Ren’s weight behind it, wanting, bizarrely, to feel more of it, to be smothered in him and maybe that’s it, too, that need.

“ _Yes_ ,” Ren rumbles. Like he might be agreeing. Or else is just chasing his own pleasure, moving faster now, rocking Hux back into the bed, as though he was really fucking him.

Difficult not to picture that, Ren breaching him, filling him and—

He comes abruptly, grunting as he spurts onto Hux’s limp cock, his belly. Sags, for a moment, where he is, almost squashing him in half, before rolling off to the side, flat on his back and letting Hux release his legs. He splays them, relieved, the muscles sore from holding the unusual position. The room reeks of their combined sweat—sharp, pungent, although not unpleasant either—and sex.

Hux is trying to summon the energy to move, his breathing and pulse slow, when Ren rolls over again, recovered, pinning his hips as he licks him clean: his still-sensitive cock, his balls, his inner thighs. He sucks luxuriously at his pubic hair, moaning softly, and all at once it’s too much, all of this, and Hux squirms, unable to bear it.

“ _Stop_ ,” he commands. Or means to; it sounds more like begging, and there are tears pricking his eyes. Humiliating. “Please stop. Fuck, I. That’s enough. _Please_ , Kylo.”

He’s somewhat stunned when Ren obeys and lies next to him again, curling around him, bracing one arm across his chest. He nips the curve of his shoulder, and somehow Hux understands this as an apology, although Ren has never apologized to him for anything—or, if he’s honest, vice versa. _Still more surprises._ But he had come here, hadn’t he, looking for secrets? Wanting to show Ren for what he is.

Only.

“I should get cleaned up,” he decides, after a lull. Use the sonic, maybe. And see what clothes he can find to wear back to his quarters. Hopefully enough to be decent. 

“Mm,” Ren says, considering this. He sniffs again at Hux’s hair, then exhales, shuffling closer. Apparently content. “No.”

“Repulsive,” Hux sighs. There’s not much heat in it. His eyelids are heavy. “What do you want me to do? Roll around in your sheets? Rub off on your pillow?”

“Oh. Would you?” he murmurs. Dreamily.

He shudders again and shakes his head. “Were you always like this?” _I just never knew?_

He’s quiet long enough Hux thinks he might have fallen asleep, is pondering how best to extricate himself from his grasp. “No,” he says. “This—“ Meaning the two of them, here, this way. “It’s different.”

And it means nothing, none of this does, of course. Changes nothing. Except: _what do I smell like now, I wonder?_

“Like me,” Ren tells him. _Pleased._ “Like us.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Blame Kylux Twitter. And me, I guess.
> 
> Thanks for reading?


End file.
